Reunited?
by AliceFranklyn
Summary: A face from the past has an important request for Dr. Zoe Hanna, but is everything as it seems?
1. Chapter 1

It has been nearly five years since she has set foot in this place. Everything has changed, new faces and places, but the smell is still there. People always say that they hate the smell of hospitals, but she likes it. She has spent so much time in them, she feels safe: someone always had her back when she was here, someone watching out for her.  
Outside of the hospitals, she had lived in a constant state of uncertainty. Although there had been pockets of happiness, shopping with her mum or when her dad was away, for the most part she would just be waiting for the next blow up, wondering where she would hide this time.

Of course that all changed with life with her grandparents. Her every need met, every question answered, and every tear wiped away. As a child, she had been the centre of their world. Maybe out of guilt over their own daughter, or because they wanted to prove something, they treated her like an angel.

She goes to reception. She remembers sitting on the counter, infuriating "Uncle Noel" behind the desk while she waited. He's still there now. He doesn't recognise her, it's been too long, and he sees new faces every day, why should hers stick out more than the others?

"Can I see Dr. Hanna please?"

"She's with a patient at the minute, but I'll let her know, take a seat and she'll be with you as soon as possible."

She sits down. She waits for what seems like hours, the busy ED rushing past her as she loses herself in her memories. The grasp of her father's hand in hers, the sight of his alcohol-fuelled rage. The feel of her mother's embrace, the sound of her screams. Those few months were like a whirlwind – fear, grief, anger, loneliness. But things had been different with Zoe, she had felt like she belonged somewhere. Life may have been confused and scary, but Zoe had held her hand and told her that she was going to be ok.

"Sharice?" That voice. Confident, authoritative. She turned around.  
"Zoe."


	2. Chapter 2

"Sharice, what are you doing here?" Straight to the point, as ever. She hasn't changed much, a few more lines around the eyes maybe, and her hair was different, but that self confidence, that hadn't gone.

She has been preparing what she was going to say for weeks, but now the moment has come, her mind has gone blank.

"I… I've come to see you"  
"Well I can see that, Sharice! Where are your grandparents?"  
"Oh, back home"  
"They do know that you're here, don't they?"  
"Yeah yeah, can we go somewhere, and talk?"

"Well OK, I'll take my break now" She turns to face the desk, "Noel, I'm going on my break, page me if you need me"

She sits on the sofa in Zoe's office. There are pictures of her on the windowsill. Maybe she does still think about her then. Contact between them had been daily in the first few months, and Zoe had even visited a couple of times. But after a while, things had faded, and Zoe became too busy with life with her new boyfriend. They haven't emailed in six months, both too wrapped up in their own lives.

Zoe comes back in with two cups of coffee.

"I can't believe you're drinking coffee now, you're all grown up!"  
"Yeah, well even the short time I spent with you must have had an influence on me."

"Cheeky!" Silence falls as they drink.

Zoe wonders why Sharice has turned up. She looks so old, drinking coffee, wearing makeup. She feels guilty that she has missed so much of her life, since Jordan and the tumour, since becoming clinical lead, time hasn't exactly been on her side, and even the time for an email every now and then has become hard to find. But through all the layers Sharice has built up, the barriers she has always had around her to protect her from the outside world, barriers similar to the ones that Zoe herself holds too, there lies a scared little girl. The same scared little girl as before, the same expression on her face as when Zoe told her that her parents had both died. No amount of makeup can hide that kind of fear.

"Sharice. We can either sit here for hours while you beat around the bush, or you can tell me now, and we can try and sort this out." She looks her dead in the eye and smiles slightly.

"I'm scared, Zoe," She brushes the hair out of her eyes where tears are beginning to form, "I don't know what to do. I don't really know what to do anymore."  
"What to do about what? Sharice, what's happened, why have – "

Sharice cuts her off: "He died. He died." And tears now falling freely down her cheeks, she crumples and sobs into Zoe's shoulder.


	3. Chapter 3

Safe in Zoe's arms, Sharice feels herself relax. Her familiar smell – expensive perfume and shower gel, hand sanitizer and antibacterial soap and the ever-present wafts of cigarettes and coffee – envelops her and her tears begin to wane. She lifts herself away and sits back against the sofa. Her eyes meet Zoe's, which are filled with concern.

"It was all my fault. I didn't want- I never wanted- It wasn't supposed to end like that. They were just being so- suffocating. I never had a minute to myself, they wouldn't leave me in peace, I couldn't even think. I only wanted to get away for a little while …"

As she tells Zoe of the last few weeks, the memories, still harsh and cutting deep into her thoughts, fill her mind.

_That initial exhilaration of catching that bus and not caring where it went, followed by that feeling of self importance as she walked the streets, walking past people who didn't know that she had run away. But then the cold. She had never known that anyone could feel so deeply, achingly cold, chilling her right to the bone as she huddled against the wall for comfort against the frosty breeze. She felt invisible as she sat there, blending into the wall behind her as peoples' gazes slipped by. And that hunger, so empty that it filled her, so much so that she followed the first people who promised her a bite and a bed._

_But that had been a huge mistake. Granted, she was warmer and she had had the remains of a takeaway, but the threat of the men who watched her every move proved to be greater than the ignorance of the streetwalkers. And then they tried to make her drink. She knew what drink could do to people. She had seen drink turn her father slowly from someone who made her feel safe and wanted, to someone who hit her mother until she broke, and to someone lying in a coffin. She was never going to end up the same way. They had tried to stop her leaving, but in the end, they didn't really care if she stayed or went, so they let her go._

_As she walked back through her front door, she was so thankful to see her grandmother's face that she failed to register her anger at first. But as the words rained hard down on her ears, there was no way she could mistake the devastation that she, Sharice had caused. "A massive heart attack." "Nothing they could do." "All that stress." _

_"It's all your fault."_

_The guilt and the grief of her grandfather's death stayed bottled up for days. She barely said anything as her nana rang all their friends to let them know, or when she made arrangements for their Spanish friends to stay. She would stay in her room and cry or just lie in her bed, blaming herself, hating herself for what she had done. It was at the funeral that she snapped. Sick of feeling lonely and tired, she caught the bus straight to Holby, knowing that she couldn't live with Kaye anymore, not when every time her nana looked at her, she saw a murderer._

"So, can I stay with you, just for a while?" Sharice looked Zoe in the eye again, pleading, begging.


	4. Chapter 4

Zoe sits back and takes everything in. She remembers how it was to be a teenager: frightened that no one wants you, trying to find your way in a world that is suddenly much bigger and scarier than you could ever have imagined. And Sharice's world has been much bigger and scarier than Zoe's had ever been. To grow up in such an unstable household, to have your parents die in such a brutal, tragic way, to be dragged from pillar to post, to have half of the most secure family you had ever known ripped away so suddenly. To have known such pain and anger at the age of just fourteen. She takes the girl in her arms and holds her close, kissing the top of her head.

"Please, Zoe, I can't go back there. Whenever she looks at me I know that she's blaming me for granddad, she thinks it's my fault that he died. I can't live with her knowing that."

"Sharice, of course you can stay with me. Everything will be fine, I promise"

"Are you sure you don't mind? I know you're really busy with work and everything, I don't want to be a burden…"

"Look at me." Zoe holds Sharice at arm's length and tells her straight. "Yes, I'm busy, and my work life is pretty hectic, but you are my priority. I am so, so sorry that I haven't been in touch recently, and that I didn't even know that you were back in Holby, or about your granddad, but I am here for you now. Anything you want, need, you've got me. We can face this together, OK?"

Sharice nods tearfully and squeezes Zoe's hand.

"Now. I need to get back to work, or they'll skin me alive, but I'll see if I can get off early, and we can get a takeaway and go back to mine. We will be OK, Sharice, I promise."

Sharice smiles gently. As Zoe leaves, she settles back into the sofa, and, drained and exhausted, she falls asleep, quicker and more easily than she has for weeks.


	5. Chapter 5

They sit together at the table, eating pizza, just like they used to.

"Right. First things first, we need to ring your nana." Glancing at Sharice's face, she heads off her protestations: "I know that you don't want to, but we need to let her know that you are safe; she is bound to be worried about you, and I can't let her sit there thinking that you've run away again."

"She doesn't care about me, she hates me."

"No, Sharice, she doesn't. She's grieving, and she's lonely, and she's taking it out on you because she's got no one else. She has to know that you're ok. Now are you going to ring her, or will I?"

"I'm not ringing her."

Disappointed in her stubbornness, Zoe raises her eyebrows and picks up the phone.

Sharice rolls her eyes and goes into the kitchen.

Two minutes later, she comes back. Zoe is still at the table, head in her hands.

"What did she say?"

"She's glad that you're safe. She's worried about you."

"Yeah, right."

"Sharice, she does care about you, you know. She's had so much to cope with over the last few weeks, -"

"What, and I haven't?"

"I'm not saying that. You're both angry and hurt, but deep down, that doesn't change how you feel about each other, not really"

"How the hell would you know? We haven't spoken for ages, and you haven't seen me for over a year, Zoe"

"I know that, but I looked after you for two months! More, if you count before you actually lived with me, and we had a bond, didn't we? I know how scared you were when your mum died. I know that you love your grandparents, and that you felt safe with them. And I know how lonely you must be feeling right now. But you have to talk to her!" Half guilt, half frustration, she stands up, "You can't leave it like this, Sharice, it's not right for either of you!"

"I don't need you telling me what to do! You were supposed to help me out, not try and force me back home at the first chance you get!" Suppressing a bubble of emotion, she half runs into the spare bedroom and slams the door, the noise reverberating round the flat like a gunshot.


	6. Chapter 6

**Thank you to those who have reviewed/followed/favourited/ enjoyed, and please continue to do so! **

Zoe sits down heavily. This has all happened so suddenly. There is no way that she had been expecting this when she came into work that morning; it was only supposed to be a regular shift, and she was supposed to have met Max this evening, she's had to fob him off with yet another story about her mother.

She could have rung Kaye and sent Sharice back home, fulfilling the duty of the uninvolved adult. And yet she has brought her to her house, she's now sitting in her spare bedroom, having spent most of the day crying on her shoulder.

Zoe had loved Sharice like a daughter. They had been so close, bound by the events that had brought them together, a real family unit. Dysfunctional, and never what Zoe had imagined for herself, but a family all the same. It had taken every ounce of strength she had to give her up, knowing that she couldn't really give her the life she deserved, needed. And now, after years, the same bond that has grown weary and strained has started to pull on her again.

But what can she realistically do now? She is the clinical lead of an overworked and, frankly, failing Emergency Department, she hasn't the time, space, or patience to take in a fourteen year old girl with so much baggage; physical and emotional. But she can't just turn Sharice back to Kaye, not when she knows how unhappy she would be.

She sighs, stands up and pours herself a glass of wine, her automatic reflex. She's about to light a cigarette before she remembers that she can't really smoke whilst Sharice is in the house. She half laughs and puts the cigarette back in its packet.

_Maybe I'll quit now. _

_What am I talking about? Quit? She's only been back for six hours and I'm already thinking about quitting for her. God, this is all messed up. _

_How am I supposed to know what to do with her? I'm no good at emotions. Look at Nick. Whenever feelings are involved, I end up either very very drunk or chasing after an arrogant, sanctimonious surgeon with a brain tumour. I never know what to say with upset patients or how to comfort bereaved relatives, how am I supposed to help this girl? What do I say to make it OK?_

_That doesn't matter. _She tells herself. _She needs you to be there for her, make things right with her Nan, help her get over her grandfather, stop her from blaming herself. She doesn't need your self-doubt or messed up love life. She needs a mother figure. Sharice is the closest thing you have to a child. Make this right. _

She stands up, sets the wine back on the table, and knocks gently on Sharice's door.

No answer.

"Sharice. Listen to me. I know you're angry. I know. OK? But you have to listen to me. You can't keep running away from things. Sooner or later, you're going to have to face up to this. And the longer you leave it, the harder things are going to get. She needs to hear from you. You need to explain things to her, so that she understands how you're feeling. Please. Just, talk to her. Face it."

She leans against the door. What else can she say?

She stumbles slightly as the door opens tentatively, but finds her balance quickly, meeting the wide eyes behind.

"Can you take me? To see her?"

Zoe's smile stretches slowly: "yeah? Tomorrow morning?"

"I'm not saying that I'm going back to live with her or anything, but I just want to see her."

"Tomorrow it is, then." Zoe kisses Sharice on the forehead and pulls her into a hug. "You're doing the right thing."


	7. Chapter 7

**Please let me know what you think of it! **

"I was frustrated. You wouldn't let me do anything. I only wanted to go into town, or go to a friend's house, but you always wanted me to stay with you, know what I was doing"

Sharice steals a glance at her grandmother's face. It's stony, no expression. _Well, at least she's not_ _angry anymore._ Zoe's in the kitchen with a coffee: she had left them alone to talk.

"And, there's another thing. You- never talk- about her. Mum. Whenever I try and bring her up, you close off. I'm worried that- I've only got one photo of her as an adult, and whenever I try and think about her, she gets further and further away." Fighting back the ever-threatening tears, and struggling against the lump in her throat, "I think I'm forgetting her."

Kaye looks Sharice in the eye for the first time. Since her husband died, she has struggled to feel anything except all-encompassing grief. They were a team for nearly fifty years, dealing with everything life threw at them together. And now he was gone, and she was sat here all alone, without a hand to hold, no one to show her how she should deal with this.

They had always been reluctant to talk about Abby. Part grief – their daughter had been murdered, an impossible thing to come to terms with, part guilt – maybe if they hadn't lost touch, they could have kept Abby and Sharice safe, and part fear. Fear that if Sharice began to idolise her, she may end up like her mother and that nature could win out. But she could see now that Sharice was desperate to know.

"I didn't know that you wanted to talk about her."

"Well I did! She was my mother, and I barely have any memories of her! How is that right?"

"You should have said something, Sharice"

"I tried, Nan! But every time I tried to bring her up, you'd just brush it away. I just wanted- something. A photo, or a memory, something apart from what I know happened. Apart from- you know."

Kaye stands up and goes slowly over to sofa where Sharice sits. She reaches out to hold her hand, but Sharice pulls it away. She perseveres: "OK. You want- right." She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes.

"When she was little, she was always so full of energy, like you were. In fact, you reminded me of her so much. She would find something to be happy about in every situation, if we were in church, she'd be giggling at the old ladies in the rows in front, or she'd be singing to herself on the way to school. I couldn't understand how she could be so effortlessly cheerful all the time: whenever I was feeling low, I could look at her chatting away to herself, and nothing would seem quite so important anymore. How could anyone possibly have been unhappy with her around?"

Looking over at her granddaughter, saddened to see tears falling freely down her cheeks, she puts an arm around her waist. This time, Sharice doesn't pull away, but snuggles into her chest.

Zoe, listening in from the kitchen, smiled to herself. She could recognise this joy in the Abby she had known. It had been faded, worn down with years of threats and abuse, but it shone through in moments when she had been relaxed; evenings with her and Sharice; and once when she had returned a favour; and it lit her up from the inside.

She stands and looks into the living room. She is torn between relief that Kaye and Sharice are making amends, and jealousy. She knows it's stupid, but the mother in Zoe, that had lain dormant for quite some time now, almost resents Kaye for taking her place. Tears threaten to fall from her own eyes. She blinks hard, shakes her head and walks back into the kitchen.

**Sorry, this chapter is based mostly on Kaye and Sharice, but I wanted to have a bit about their relationship as well... next chapter is all Zoe, promise!**


	8. Chapter 8

Zoe drives alone. Kaye had wanted Sharice to stay, and, not wanting to disrupt anything, Zoe had left them to it, promising to come back at four. Sharice had seemed much calmer with Kaye. With such a large weight off of her shoulders, she must have felt so much better.

She lights her first cigarette of the day and takes three long drags. Emotions suddenly crashing over her in waves, she pulls over and stops the car. Her eyes are hot with the spikes of tears. As they begin to spill over, she chucks her cigarette out the window and lights another. She hates crying. It's such an unnecessarily public display of emotion, shows weaknesses, a chink in the armour. The last time she cried like this was when Jordan left.

Pushing against the steering wheel, she berates herself for having let Sharice go. She had almost been her daughter. At least, the closest thing she has ever had to a daughter. Will ever have.

She knows she can never really be a mother, has always known, really, even before she read that horrible little word on that letter. "Infertile". Making her sound like some unprofitable piece of land. She has long since come to terms with the fact that she will never carry a child, gotten used to people awkwardly avoiding telling her about their pregnancies, playing it off as being "not the mothering kind". It didn't stop the pangs of "if only" now, though. If she had had a child of her own, maybe she wouldn't feel so awful about being second choice again.

Her tears, for her almost-daughter, for her never-daughters, begin finally to ease. Her eyes, unused to crying, are puffy. Having got it out of her system, she finishes her cigarette, covers the tear tracks with concealer, and pulls her barriers back up. She is an open person, happy for people to know her dry sense of humour and sarcasm, willing to chat and laugh on a night out with friends, but the idea of people seeing her feelings or weaknesses is abhorrent. She can count the number of people who have seen her really cry on one hand.

In the need of some light relief and some attention, she grabs her phone and starts the car up.

"Arhh Zoe you woke me up. I'm on nights..."

"Sorry," (although she wasn't), "I'm on my way over"

"Mm hm"

**For all those who want zax, there is a bit in the next chapter, but I wanted this story to focus on sharice... I am thinking of writing a zax story soon though... **

**Thanks your the reviews :) xx**


	9. Chapter 9

Everything seems much simpler from the view from Max's bed. His posters of scantily clad women, rock bands and the Simpsons remind her that he is much younger than her. She often forgets, their conversation never running far beyond childish banter. She would feel self-conscious, knowing how many younger women Max has slept with, but he did all the chasing, and anyway, she knows she's good. She turns and looks at him looking at her.  
"What?" She asks, unnerved by the intensity in his eyes.

"You're beautiful, Zoe." He's serious, too. She'd never really thought about him as more than a casual fling. Was it turning into more than that?

"Oh piss off, Max." Leaning forward, she kisses him again, and he responds eagerly. She likes him; he makes her feel good, in more ways than one. He buys her flowers, and he doesn't care that she's the boss and he's a porter. But a proper relationship? There isn't really that understanding that there was with Nick, or even with Matt, to an extent. They could spend an entire evening, an entire day in bed together, or they could talk in depth for hours. But he is good for her: she feels happier after time spent with him than after stressing about Jordan, and he does treat her like a queen...

For the time being, this couldn't go much further than a fling. Apart from anything else, she doubts whether the Sharice situation would work. And right now, she has to be her priority.

She sighs inwardly, worry filling her mind again. But as Max pulls her on top of him, leading her to distraction, Sharice, Jordan and the ED are the last things on her mind.

**Sorry! I sort of had to cut out Zax, or the story would have been too complicated... Believe me, I didn't enjoy writing it! But the next chapter is the last one, so you won't have to live without Zax for much longer ;)**


	10. Chapter 10

"Well?" Only ten minutes late, Zoe had picked Sharice up, and was now taking her back to her flat. "How was that?"

"Good. I think. We talked, not just about mum, but about other stuff, too. I think it's going to be OK now."

Kaye had put Sharice's mind at rest. Everything had been twisted up by grief, so that rationality and responsibility for her granddaughter had been lost, and she hadn't realised that Sharice wasn't coping with her own losses. Kaye had apologized for blaming Sharice, and Sharice had apologized for running away. They had promised to talk more: about Abby, about her grandfather, about how they were feeling. The newfound openness and closeness between them was refreshing, but they both needed space for a few days.

"I won't say I told you so." Zoe winks at Sharice, who grins back.

"Thank you, Zoe. I know this has all been stressful for you, but I don't think we would have sorted it out if you hadn't stepped in."

"Sharice, please don't thank me. I do still care about you, you know. And after you go back to your nana's, we are going to speak more. You are always welcome in my spare room for a girly night in, or we can go out for dinner sometimes, or we can just have a chat on the phone, but I don't want you ever feeling like you can't talk to me, or running away again. I don't want another yesterday."

"Was it only yesterday? It feels like weeks ago."

"Mhmm. Listen. We've got a while before dinner yet. What do you want to do?"

She thinks for a moment. She wonders if this is the right thing to ask. She goes ahead with it anyway, she trusts Zoe implicitly. "Can we go to Mum's grave?"

Zoe smiles and nods. "If that's what you want, then that's what we'll do."

Sharice pauses. "Could we buy some snowdrops please?"

"I'm no florist, but I don't think that June's the right time of year for snowdrops, I'm afraid. We can find something else though, eh?"

It's strange how this slab of concrete and some carvings represent a life. Laughter and tears, joy and fear, love and loss, are all lost in-between two inscribed dates and a name. It doesn't matter though. Between Sharice, Zoe and Kaye, there are enough memories of Abby to keep a flicker of her alive. Sharice lays the sunflowers on the grass before her mother's gravestone. They have chosen sunflowers because of what Kaye had said about Abby's incurable happiness. The beaming yellow paint a heavy contrast with the greys and the greens and the browns of the graveyard, like a little ray of sunshine.

They are neither of them under any illusions that Abby had been a saint. She had been weak, had stolen and lied, but she had loved her daughter. Sharice knows that, can still faintly remember the tightness of her mother's embrace, although it's like a shadow now. More real is the love that both Kaye and Zoe have for her, the feel of her grandmother's arm round her shoulders, and the safety of Zoe's hand in hers. She squeezes, Zoe's nails digging slightly into her palm.

"Are you ready?" Zoe asks. Their eyes meet, and an understanding passes between them. They know that they won't let go now, whether Sharice is living in Holby with Kaye, or in Spain. They will have this bond wherever they go.

"I'm ready."


End file.
